Once we discuss dynasties in faculty sports activities, we discuss a number of applications: Alabama soccer, UConn girls’s basketball, Duke males’s basketball.
Effectively, it’s time we add one other dynasty to the group: the College of Oklahoma’s softball program. Since 2010, the argument might be made that the Sooners’ softball program is THE most profitable faculty sports activities program in America.
Let’s begin with the stats. Since 2010, the Sooners have gained seven nationwide championships, together with every of the final 4 titles. For comparability, Alabama soccer has gained 4 titles whole since 2010, as have UConn males’s basketball in that very same time interval. Actually, the one main faculty sports activities program that comes near matching Oklahoma girls’s softball is UConn girls’s basketball, successful 5 titles since 2010, together with three straight. However even then, it pales within the sheer dominance of Sooner softball. Individuals have accused the Sooners’ softball program of being too dominant, and to that the Sooners simply determine to maintain on successful. Head coach Patty Gasso has been within the dugout for the final 31 years for the Sooners, however not too long ago the Sooners have been on a run that’s unmatched in faculty sports activities. Since 2020, the Sooners have gained 235 video games, 41 within the postseason. In these 4 years, they’ve misplaced the identical quantity of postseason video games as they’ve gained the Ladies’s School World Sequence. 21 wins within the WCWS in that interval, pure dominance from that perspective.
What stands out about Oklahoma softball is the power to adapt and regulate, whereas holding the usual for high quality play excessive. Gasso is ready to hold Oklahoma on the high even within the Identify, Picture and Likeness period of school sports activities, the place roster turnover is nearly an inevitability. But, at Oklahoma they continue to be on the pinnacle of the game as the game adjustments round them. The Sooners are at all times on the switch portal, utilizing each benefit they will to stay on the high. First crew All-Pac 12 outfielder Abby Dayton is on the high of this listing, however there’s much more high tier gamers coming to Norman to play for the Sooners, specifically pitcher Kelly Maxwell, who got here from Oklahoma State final 12 months. The Sooners don’t simply construct by the portal, nevertheless. A big majority of the Sooners’ crew is homegrown, racking up high recruiting courses 12 months over 12 months. Icons of the game like Jocelyn Alo, Riley Boone and extra have spent years within the Oklahoma improvement program, ready for his or her probability to begin.
Dr. Katie Lever wrote in Matt Brown’s Further Factors concerning the Sooner softball program, and the way they preserve their place on the high of the school sports activities world. One of many ways in which they do that is by an offense that merely smashes each opponent they face. They swing for the fences, and once they do, they’re usually connecting. In 250 video games since 2020, the Sooners have hit 555 house runs, virtually 200 greater than the quantity of runs they’ve given up in that very same interval. In 2023, the Sooners’ softball crew run-ruled 27 of their 55 opponents, together with each tremendous regional opponent they confronted. This isn’t simply beating all the very best groups; that is demolishing everybody else within the sport. There’s a spot between Oklahoma and the remainder of the school sports activities world, and it’ll solely get greater as Gasso maintains her spot.
As Oklahoma strikes to the SEC within the upcoming educational 12 months, the street will probably be more durable for the Sooners to keep up their hole over the remainder of the game. The SEC is house to a few of the high applications within the sport—utilizing D1 softball’s remaining high 25 ballot, 5 of the highest ten softball groups within the nation are within the SEC exterior of Oklahoma, two of them are additionally within the high 5 with Oklahoma. Together with the transfer to the SEC comes taking part in in opposition to groups which might be persistently close to the highest in spending on the subject of NIL, making recruiting much more troublesome. Nevertheless, if there’s one factor that the sports activities world has come to know over the past decade-plus, it’s the Oklahoma softball will nonetheless discover their approach to Omaha, smashing homers and boundaries all through the method.